One of the characteristics of life in my small town is that when government makes a mistake, it’s never acknowledged as a mistake. There can’t be mistakes, really, in a place in which noble public servants and visionary leaders, transform the community from a near-utopia to complete utopia. At least, that’s the impression of their work they’d like to leave.
Just a few days ago, the Dane County Young Republicans challenged the nomination papers of incumbent U.S. representative Tammy Baldwin of Madison. (I received a copy of their press release, announcing the challenge.) They did so under the contention that she listed her office address, but not a local address, on her paperwork.
She’s done this for years, with the approval of the Government Accountability Board, to as a consequence of threats she’s received. Anyone bothering to check past filings with the GAB would have seen as much. I wrote about the challenge in a topic entitled, Republicans Jump Too Quickly: “Baldwin Kept on Ballot After Board Nixes Complaint.”
The GAB dismissed the Young Republicans’ challenge. Afterward, I received a second press release from them, contending that the GAB’s dismissal was one of “politics over principle.”
That’s backwards– it’s politics that motivated the challenge, and it’s the principle of personal safety that informed the GAB’s continuing policy of allowing Baldwin to use an office address on her campaign filing.
Instead of acknowledging that they’d acted rashly without looking at the GAB’s past, or at least letting the matter drop, the YR’s want to contend that there’s still something amiss.
In one way, they’re right — there’s something amiss with a political group that does not study the reasons for an ongoing practice, and then refuses to acknowledge its own lack of study.